THANGO NTWASA | Don't let Zanzou kill the queer nightlife

While house music is a staple in the homes and taverns of black communities in South Africa, its roots spring from the nightclub of 1970s Chicago. While many may have appeared in the burgeoning disco and hip-hop of the era, it was predominantly black queer DJs who would light the first spark of the global phenomenon.

The music was born out of basements and an underground scene that sought a new freedom for minority groups looking to express themselves. The samespaces would become the soundtrack of South African youths who rebelled against the political landscape by partying together regardless of their identities in a much more welcoming environment.

This revolt has been a constant for queer people around the world with many taking to new conceptual spaces like kiki balls and pride events to find the freedom they have not been afforded in the past. However, nightclubs and festivals have become hot spots for human traffickers and violence. An increasing risk that has seen bouncers from Zanzou taint the image of nightlife.

While many conversations around the issue have been about affordability and the need to stunt on others with one's wealth, queer club culture has these problems but the added value of community. Young gays, lesbians and transgender partygoers navigate regular society with the threat of violence. Instead of fully expressing their identities in their lives it's in gay clubs and queer night gatherings that they are able to wear, speak and exist outside of heteronormative values.

This was the same sentiment for the gay ballroom scene that exploded into total stardom in the late 1980s. Homeless queer black, indigenous and people of colour would gather in chosen families called houses and among their shared interests they would perform at the balls in pageant-style competition and vogue battles.

While regular women in the 1980s would settle for light layers of makeup, drag queens of the time would lather on copious amounts to achieve the kinds of Hollywood-style beauty standards that would win them trophies at a ball. Their techniques, passed down from house to house, would birth today's “face beat” methods that have become a staple for women in professional and social settings. They revolutionised the beauty industry into marketing multiple products to help achieve the right look, which can also be attributed to the science of black drag queens using all manner of shades to blend makeup to their darker skin tones.

And while safety is not a concern for only queer folk painting the town red, heterosexuals have also embraced these spaces. Rather than the stiff no-dancing spaces that regular clubs can be, straight people have started entering gay clubs to feel freer to enjoy better musical line-ups and for straight women to feel safer.

This has also been the fate of South Africa's very own long-standing ball, Vogue Nights, which has welcomed all with strict rules against prejudice and violence. A space many other clubs can learn from as their events prioritise bouncers who are educated and capable of dealing with diverse groups of people.

Let us not view Zanzou's disaster as a moment to forgo nightclubs but as a reminder to keep these revolutionary spaces safe.